


the beginning of a beautiful courtship

by dollsome



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:08:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23996515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollsome/pseuds/dollsome
Summary: In which Luke Danes, single dad to a super genius, attends a Parents' Night at Chilton and meets a certain newly-divorced woman who likes to banter ...
Relationships: Luke Danes/Lorelai Gilmore
Comments: 40
Kudos: 208





	the beginning of a beautiful courtship

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the anon prompt "Luke Danes, single father to April, meets Hartford socialite Lorelai Gilmore."
> 
> Rory and April's ages are a little closer in this than in canon, but also, like, Luke and Lorelai know each other in canon, so we're in the realm of NO RULES, friendos! (I got way more emo writing this than I expected to.)

Luke’s already uncomfortable—this school is like the house from Clue or something, and he’s wearing a tie; he really hates wearing a tie—even before he sees her.

Everybody’s filing out of the Parents’ Night lecture where some guy with dark floppy hair talked about the wonders of Shakespeare and syllabi. She’s walking and chatting with some other parents, and her smile’s bright and animated, but something about her eyes tells him she wants to make a run for it.

Before he quite realizes what he’s doing, he abandons his original plan—to get the hell out of this place as fast as possible without seeming rude—and makes his way over to a total stranger.

“Hey,” he says to her, “can you tell me where the, uh, bathroom is?”

He ignores the looks of vague disgust the other parents flash his way. They’re easy to ignore when he’s got her face to look at.

He can tell he made the right call; it’s like her whole aura brightens. (Or at least that’s how Liz would describe it. Something dumb like auras.) “The bathroom? Absolutely I can. Believe me, you’re not gonna be disappointed. It’s like they say: ain’t no toilet like a Chilton toilet ‘cause a Chilton toilet … can flush. Which I guess … makes it like any other toilet. See you later, guys! So fun talking to you!”

“I don’t really need the bathroom,” he tells her in an undertone as they walk together toward the exit. “I just thought you looked like you could use an escape over there. Sorry if I was overstepping.”

“No, please. Overstep away. Frankly, I might owe you my life.”

“That bad?”

“Recently divorced.” She waves her empty ring finger as evidence. “I hate coming to these things, but I figured I’d have to see all these people sooner or later, so I thought coming to the first Parents’ Night of the school year might be like ripping off the band-aid. But I realized as soon as I got here that I, in fact, loved that band-aid, and ripping it off was a big mistake, huge; that band-aid might as well have worked on commission! … I lost you with that one, right?”

“Yep.”

“Big strapping guy like you hasn’t seen Pretty Woman; what’s the world coming to?”

“Michael Moore should probably make a documentary.”

“Right?” She gives him an approving look. “A-plus retort. Most Chilton parents would’ve stopped talking to me by now.”

He shrugs. “Sounds like most Chilton parents are idiots.”

He wonders if that was a little too caustic, considering he should be trying to fit into this place, but she doesn’t seem bothered. “Oh-ho-ho, amen to that, buddy. If one more person politely consoled me on my hip new divorcee status, I was going to rage vomit.”

“Yikes. Rage vomit, huh?”

“Oh, big time. Bystanders would have been like, ‘Remember The Exorcist? That was actually kind of cute. I know that now. I’ve got perspective.’” She elbows him lightly. “Hey, have I seen you here before?”

“Definitely not.”

“Ooh. Loving that enthusiasm.”

“Sorry, it’s just—my daughter, she’s starting this year. She’s a real super genius type, skipped two grades; she’s always been dying to come to a big fancy school and it’s finally happening. Was that weird to say super genius before? I don’t mean to brag. It’s just, she’s really smart. Although I guess that’s not out of the ordinary around here. Everybody’s kid’s really smart.”

“I dunno. My daughter’s in her senior year, and it sounds like there’s a lot of classic idiocy floating around, although she’s mostly immune. I went to a school like this, and I can attest to the fact that there were idiots a-plenty back then. You’re looking at one.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Oh, believe it. This idiot had a baby by senior year.”

“Wow. I was thinking you looked young to have a senior of your own.”

“Oh, you know what they say. You’ve got to start while you’re still a kid, or where’s the fun? Who needed those adventurous, fancy-free twenties everybody’s always talking about, anyway?”

“Ehh, mine weren’t that fancy-free. Dead parents. Figuring out what to do with the family business. Helping my sister raise her kid.”

“God, it’s nice to meet another late bloomer. I feel like my forties are really going to be my Under the Tuscan Sun years. Though, to be fair, I didn’t see it, so I don’t really know what that reference entails. I went with 2 Fast 2 Furious instead.”

“Any regrets?” He holds the door open for her as they step out into the summer evening.

“Not about the choice in movies,” she answers, a little too sunnily.

“Sorry about your divorce,” Luke says. Most of the time he wouldn’t get that personal with somebody he’d known for decades. There’s just something about her.

“Don’t be. I don’t know what took me so long. Well, I do, I guess, but I still shouldn’t have let it. Are you also, uh—?” She waves her empty ring finger again, then makes a little throat-slitting gesture to really drive it home.

“Nah,” Luke says.

“Oh,” she says, and her face falls a little.

He hurries to add, “We never got married, me and April’s mom. We dated a long time ago. Actually, I didn’t know I had a kid until this past year.”

She gasps, eyes huge. “ _No way_.”

“Way.”

“So you’re basically living a soap opera.”

“I run a diner in Stars Hollow, Connecticut, population 9,973. Nonstop soap opera.”

“Hey, I’ve been there!” She hits his arm excitedly.

He can’t help smiling a little. “You have?”

“My mother gets the occasional urge to antique, and she likes to drag prisoners along. God, I loved it; it was beautiful. I could’ve stayed forever.”

“Well, you should come visit sometime; stick around longer. The quaint B&B scene is very big. I hate it, obviously, but objectively it’s pretty nice.”

“Not a quaint B&B guy? I’m shocked.”

“More of a sit-alone-in-the-woods guy.”

“Very respectable. I’ve never been camping.”

It’s his turn to say, “No way.”

“Way.” She laughs. It’s a not-entirely-happy sound. “Diner guy, I could dazzle you with the amount of stuff I’ve never done.”

He feels a stab of sympathy for her. “Well, if you ever want to come sit in the woods in Stars Hollow, let me know. And I’ll, uh, point you in the direction of some good trees.”

“Thanks.” She smiles. He likes it better than the laugh. Seems truer. “I’ll remember that.”

“I’m Luke, by the way,” he adds. “Luke Danes.”

“Luke Danes the Diner Guy.” Her smile brightens into a grin. “Very nice ring to it.” She reaches over to shake his hand. “Lorelai H—Lorelai Gilmore.”

“Lorelai,” he repeats, trying to remember the normal amount of time that a handshake should last. If it breaks the rules of etiquette, she doesn’t seem to mind.

For a little while, they walk together in nice silence across the parking lot.

She stops in front of a shiny BMW. It kind of makes him want to walk home instead of letting her see what he drove here in. “Well, I’ll see you around.”

“I’m sure you will,” he agrees.

“Goodnight.” She pauses the purse search for her keys to look up at him.

“’Night,” he says pleasantly.

Feeling a totally irrational urge to stay, he keeps walking, heading toward his truck at the end of the lot. (When he got here and discovered his was the only truck around, he’d decided parking far away was the safest bet.)

He’s nearly to it when he hears footsteps, and turns to see Lorelai jogging up to him.

“Give me a call sometime,” she says cheerfully, holding out a scrap of paper. “We can grab coffee before we heckle PTA meetings and get kicked out.”

“I’m more of an herbal tea guy,” he answers, taking the paper and letting his fingers brush hers. “But yeah. I’d like that.”

She puts a hand to her heart like he’s shot her, staggering back toward her car. “Oh, Luke. Don’t make me hate you before I even know you!”

“Caffeine’ll wreak havoc on your sleep cycle.”

“What’s that you said? I can’t hear you! Byeeeeee!”

He gives her one last wave before she dips theatrically into her driver’s seat and slams the door. Once she’s gone, he tucks her phone number carefully into his wallet, then walks the rest of the way to his truck with a smile on his face.


End file.
